The first thing you need to know about Moneygun, a recent addition to the 16" on Center outfit (Longman & Eagle, Dusek's) in Fulton Market, is that it's just a bar. The second thing: "You can cuss at Moneygun," said partner William Duncan.

In other words, it's a fine place to drink, but it ain't fine dining. (That's not to say the food menu isn't on point, but we'll get there.) Loosen your ties, West Loopers. Near kinetic Restaurant Row with high concepts and higher expectations, classic-cocktail-focused Moneygun is neither, which is exactly what the neighborhood was missing.

Leading up to its quiet opening in March, Moneygun’s tagline on social media unofficially became “It’s just a bar.” It almost sounded like a humblebrag coming from Duncan (Longman & Eagle, Punch House) and other partners Dustin Drankiewicz (Tack Room, The Promontory) and Justin Anderson (The Promontory), a group of bartenders who have consistently impressed me at previous establishments. While humble, they actually don’t brag enough. “Just a bar” is simply the most bare-bones way to describe a refreshing addition to a food-driven neighborhood lacking in laid-back watering holes.

Pleased to meet you

What’s a “moneygun,” you ask? As Drankiewicz puts it, “Wouldn’t it be awesome if there were a gun that shot money? It would solve a lot of the world’s problems.” Fair. Despite being just one block off the beaten path of Randolph Street, Moneygun almost feels like it’s in an entirely different neighborhood.

To my surprise, there wasn’t a line outside the rusty green door illuminated by a single green light (green means open, yellow means at capacity and red means closed). I’d heard rumors of lines 20 people deep just 10 minutes after opening. It was after 11 p.m. when I dropped in, but the 50-person bar was still standing room only with a mix of 20- and 30-somethings in both business casual and jeans and flannels.

Abel Uribe / Chicago Tribune

A mirrored wall serves as a menu at Moneygun.

A mirrored wall serves as a menu at Moneygun.

(Abel Uribe / Chicago Tribune)

With shallow ceilings, dark wooden booths and navy blue walls, it’s a sexy little low-lit hole in the wall that feels timeless. The space captures all the best qualities of seedy, unpolished bars of decades past—simple drinks, questionable lighting and a welcome environment where both the buttoned-up and the undignified are free to coexist. In a past life, the bar was Lake & Union Grill & Tap, a neighborhood spot where $10 was worth a topless lady and underground raves took place upstairs at an unlicensed bar that regulars knew as “660,” Drankiewicz said.

Aesthetically, nothing feels forced. Though it’s not trying to mimic another era, Moneygun seems much more settled than a 2-month-old concept. The curved bar is the focal point, arcing around the sleek white-tiled back bar with eight simple stainless steel tap handles beneath Moneygun’s official slogan, “Pleasing you, pleases us.” Duncan said they retained much of what they inherited with the space, like the booths and bar, to maintain a true “lived-in” feeling, only modernizing surfaces and building up the back bar. But it’s not a tchotchke-ridden neo dive.

“We didn’t want to look overly adorned or Disneyland,” Duncan said. “If over time it does develop a sort of an adornment, like an old dive bar does, we would like that to happen honestly over the course of several years rather than trying to create that from day one.”

The dirty 30

My date and I settled into a booth next to a mirrored wall that stretches nearly the length of the room and serves as the cocktail menu, 30 classics coupled with hand-drawn art (all $10.75, perhaps the cheapest in the neighborhood). We settled on the freshest Pimm’s Cup I’ve ever sipped, with a crisp cucumber-strawberry relish and a sprig of mint, and a manhattan with scotch (aka Rob Roy).

You won’t find any cocktail descriptions at Moneygun, which significantly speeds up the ordering process, a feeling that’s almost foreign in an age where Googling ingredients is second nature. It also encourages guests to interact with the servers.

“We like to ask the questions,” Duncan said. “We want to find out what [customers are] in the mood for. We want to ask them if there's a base spirit preference they have. … If we ask a couple questions, we're going to have them pick exactly what they're in the mood for.”

This was certainly true in my experience, but a menu lacking ingredient details doesn’t let on to some of the finer points the bar has to offer. I didn’t pay any mind to the Cuba Libre, for instance, as it seemed like an expensive rum and cola with lime at first glance. But on my second trip, I discovered it’s actually one of the tastiest cocktails on the menu.

Drankiewicz, a soda witch doctor, concocts housemade cola and tonic served on tap. Mixed with Ron Flor de Cana rum, the Cuba Libre is coconut-y and tropical, like biting into a pineapple with a ginger-lavender bite. The cola also adds a mellow viscosity to the Long Island iced tea, a ’90s throwback that paired well with the De La Soul bumpin’ throughout the bar on my first visit.

“We're encouraging people to have ... these drinks that … fancy mixologists would not be all that excited to put on a menu,” Duncan said. “But Dustin has created these awesome house soft drinks, and we carbonate them and serve them on tap, and that allows us to serve a whiskey and Coke or a vodka-cranberry that we can get behind.”

Moneygun also offers 20-some beers, including pours from Logan Square’s Hopewell Brewing Co. and “lite beer from Miller.” But menus and cocktail programs aside, it’s “more about what it feels like to be there,” Duncan said.

“It's about this feeling that we're striving towards of … everybody in the room being on the same page and feeling real good because the lights are right, the music's right and the drink tastes good and the staff is friendly, and it's kind of just this thing that happens when all of those things go right,” he said.

Wham bam grand slam, ma’am

Any good bar needs snacks to soak up the booze, and who better to curate the menu than Michelin-starred chef Jared Wentworth of Longman & Eagle and Dusek’s? Moneygun’s menu offers a mix of bar snacks and entrees with a cheeky twist.

Photo courtesy of Clayton Hauck for Moneygun

Kentucky fried quail.

Kentucky fried quail.

(Photo courtesy of Clayton Hauck for Moneygun)

My date ordered the Kentucky fried quail ($15) served with mac ’n’ cheese, braised greens and buttermilk biscuits with black pepper gravy. He said the seasoning was pretty close to traditional KFC (Wentworth wouldn’t disclose the 11 secret spices in the recipe). But little did I know I was sitting down with a biscuit connoisseur. “I’ve never wanted to savor a biscuit before,” my date said. A "premium biscuit experience" it was.

Wentworth said he doesn’t ever take his food too seriously, and the KFQ is just one clever example of quality dining colliding with greasy bar food. The Buffalo frog legs ($12) with blue cheese dressing aerated with nitrous oxide are his version of chicken wings. The foie gras grand slam ($18-$38)—complete with pancakes, candied bacon powder, maple braised apples and whipped eggs—is a nod to the Denny’s favorite. At Moneygun, even plebes can have nice things.

Wentworth has built a name for himself on elevated gastropub food, and his Michelin-recognized menus prove it's his strength. But there’s nothing stuffy about what he’s offering.

“We're not trying to be fine anything,” he said. “We are trying to essentially use the same fine dining products you would have with any three-star Michelin restaurant.”

Bottom line

In a city with an accomplished beverage scene, menus are everything. But Moneygun, with notable cocktail experiences like The Aviary in its backyard, is the antithesis of highbrow. It’s a delightfully simplistic contribution to a neighborhood of world-class dining.

“There is so much high concept effort in our hospitality industry, and Moneygun is a little bit of a reaction to that of being more low concept and not really trying to compete in any way,” Duncan said.

Moneygun doesn’t fly in the face of fine drinking and dining. It complements the neighborhood’s existing scene, dialing back on the concepts and novel-length menus and focusing on the fundamentals that make every bar “just a bar”—good service, good drinks and a good time.